“They aren’t rewarded for challenging the client’s assumptions”

Sales and marketing may not be sharing goals with one another. Marketing may not be incentivized by sales goals. Marketing commissions advertising based on what some in the Lean Startup movement call ‘vanity metrics’ – likability or brand perceptions or awards.

Advertising agencies aren’t paid to become experts on the client’s business, so they become experts on advertising. They don’t have the time or the relationships to go deep on the structure of the market; they aren’t rewarded for challenging the client’s assumptions. They don’t have access to the right people in the client teams for the information they need to make the best recommendations and the best work. They don’t have the budgets to get that information on their own.